Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

This paper focuses on the watershed decade of 1990-2000, when the critical discourse on the “jeune cinéma
français” is in full bloom. In parallel with this discourse, the decade witnessed the emergence of the
“banlieue film” and the assertion of a French-Maghrebi cinematographic identity. The argument analyzes the
concomitance of these three aspects of youth (“jeune cinema”, banlieue films, French-Maghrebi films of the
“post-beurs” variety). It thereby seeks to show how this division of youth into distinct categories (some of
whom are marginalised) is in fact based on the building of a French national narrative within the history of
cinema, at a time when the “roman national français” is itself criticized by historians in a variety of ways.
Ultimately, my aim in this paper is to investigate the way the concept of ethnicity allows for a questioning of
the history of French cinema.
6J
So what do you do?: tracking creative graduates in Australia and the UK (Chair, Mary Elizabeth Luka)
This panel draws on preliminary team research undertaken for the Australia Research Council Discovery Project “So
what do you do?: tracking creative graduates in Australia and the UK” (2016-2018). The session investigates the
career destinations of creative graduates in Australia and the UK. In the context of both the rise of Creative
Industries policy push and the marketisation of university education in both countries, the focus on graduate
creative labour has gained some urgency. This panel focuses on the Australian experience and, reading the Graduate
Destination surveys conducted by Graduate Careers Australia (GCA) alongside ABS census data, explores the
differences in labour market returns for creative degrees according to do models of the sector: that of the Creative
Industries, and that of the Cultural Industries.
Scott Brook
Recalling the liberal arts in the creative economy
This paper introduces the aims of the research project, situating it within a growing international literature
on creative graduates. It reviews the way in which the critique of arts education that accompanied the
creative industries push has increasingly retreated from a focus on industry-specific vocational training in
order to return to a focus on the general and transferable skills of the “embedded creative”. As with any
product recall, such a process of refitting the vocation of “the creative” demonstrates the historical fallibility
and inventiveness of educational discourse in adapting to economic conditions beyond its control.
Phil Lewis
The returns to a university degree in creative arts
This paper presents estimates of the private monetary benefits in Australia associated with the completion
of a bachelor degree in the fields of study classified as creative and cultural studies under a range of
different assumptions. The results show that for the average person, there are little or no monetary
incentives to complete these degrees and the private rate of return compares unfavourably with alternative
degrees or with returns to financial assets such as the rate of interest. However, there are differences in
rates of return according to gender and according to the assumptions used. The results are calculated on
varying assumptions providing evidence of the robustness of the conclusions. Finally, implications for policy,
such as university financing and increases in university places, are discussed.
Jen Webb
The Creative and Cultural Industries in Australia: a Nominalist Approach
This paper describes the conceptual basis of the two models of cultural sector employment mobilised in the
study, those of the “Creative” and “Cultural” industries. The paper notes the distinct ways of formatting the
labour market that each provides: where the former focuses on the “creative skills” as a human capital
input, the later focuses on “cultural” goods and services as an output. Such an approach enables discussion
158